9 Quotes by George Schaller

I learned long ago that conservation has no victories, that one must retain connections and remain involved with animals and places that have captured the heart, to prevent their destruction. I am sometimes asked why, given a world that is more wounded and scarred, I do not simply give up, burdened by pessimism. But conservation is my life, I must retain hope

You can do the best science in the world but unless emotion is involved it’s not really very relevant. Conservation is based on emotion. It comes from the heart and one should never forget that.

A ruin is not just something that happened long ago to someone else; its history is that of us all, the transience of power, of ideas, of all human endeavors.

Mountains and deserts, with their sparse life at the limit of existence, make one restless and disconsolate; one becomes an explorer in an intellectual realm as well as in a physical one.

To witness that calm rhythm of life revives our worn souls and recaptures a feeling of belonging to the natural world. No one can return from the Serengeti unchanged, for tawny lions will forever prowl our memory and great herds throng our imagination.

My interest in wildlife began early and I don’t know how early because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been interested in. I’ve always had a certain curiosity, a certain wonder about the natural world. I like to be outdoors.

Humans are the one species the world could do very well without.

There are never victories in conservation. If you want to save a species or a habitat, it’s a fight forevermore. You can never turn your back.

For what are the whales being killed? For a few hundred jobs and products that are not needed, since there are cheap substitutes. If this continues, it will be the end of living and the beginning of survival. The world is being totaled.